Duplicate Content

[mreigle]

I sell bedding on my website, so naturally I sell bedskirts. I have about 100 different products, because the bedskirts all have different lengths and sizes. The pages for the bedskirts on my site are virtually identical, except for the lenth of the bedskirt in inches and the size. Here's a copy of one of my descriptions:

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Item Description


Our Cal. King bedskirts are all specially made to fit your mattress. They need little to no ironing and are available in 11 gorgeous colors.

These are extremely difficult to find. This particular skirt is constructed with a clean finish hem and split corners.

Purchase one today, we promise you won't be disappointed.

Features:


200 thread count
50% cotton, 50% polyester
14-inch drop
Clean finish hem and split corners
Made in the USA

Set includes:


1 California King Ruffled Bed Skirt
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Each page is different where it says "14-inch drop". Some say "18-inch", some say "21-inch". Also, some say "Queen", "King" etc instead of "California King"

I've read that Google will index the one that it feels is most important. My site is doing poorly in being listed in Yahoo, and I think duplicate content might be to blame. How hard does Yahoo penalize for this? Would it be worth it to go into each product and add a drop-down box that allows the customer to choose a different length? That would cut the number of bedskirt pages down to about 1/3 of what they are now.

[webhostingrebates]

If it were me, I would add the drop down box not only for reducing the duplicated content but also to enhance the user experience. I would think that your users would prefer the drop down box -vs- individual pages for different lengths.

[GoWFB_SEO]

I don't think you will get penalized for this. there is such things as duplicate content filter. which means it filter out one page if another page is very similiar to that page. The reason you are doing poorly on Yahoo more likely to be affected by other factors